


Rain

by MercuryPoisoning



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alcoholic Roy Mustang, Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Ishval Civil War, One Shot, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Riza is also sad but still trying to help, Roy is sad, Royai - Freeform, Short One Shot, Why Did I Write This?, father forgive me, for i have sinned, literally just Roy being sad about the war, what have I created
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2019-04-08 06:39:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14099478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercuryPoisoning/pseuds/MercuryPoisoning
Summary: Roy is drinking a little too much in the wake of the Ishvallan War of Extermination, and Riza is just trying to hold everything together.A Very Short oneshot.





	Rain

Roy was drinking again. Again. As usual. 

Riza found him in the same bar that she always found him in, his eyelids heavy with intoxication, hunched over that morning's newspaper. 'HEROES OF ISHVAL RETURN' read the headline triumphantly, and the picture below it boasted none other than the man she'd been looking for in centre frame. 

She stood next to him but he didn't notice; she watched him a moment as his eyes darted wearily over the page, rereading the same words again and again. A nearly-empty glass stood within reach. When his hand moved towards it, she made her presence known by seizing the glass and sliding it out of his reach.

He turned in confusion and fixed a swimming, unsteady gaze on her. "Lieutenant?" 

"Let's go home, sir," Riza prodded, taking ahold of his upper arm. He made no effort to defy her - gentle but firm, she steered him out of the bar. Stares followed them but Roy didn't seem to notice. If he did, he was just too hammered to care. And maybe that was the reason he _was_ hammered. 

As soon as they'd made it to the street, Roy stumbled. He lurched sideways - instincts taking over, Riza slid around him and planted her feet so he could fall into her. Wrapping an arm around his waist, she all but dragged him to a nearby bench, upon which they both collapsed. 

"L-Lieutenant," Roy said shakily. "What are you doing here?" 

"Same as always, sir," she responded, keeping her tone even. "Saving you from drinking yourself into the hospital." 

He barked out a low chuckle and threw his head back, bangs falling over his eyes. "You don't need to save me from anything," he said, his voice full of some falsely acquired conviction. "I'm a hero of Ishval, remember?" 

 His tone alarmed her. "Sir." 

Roy laughed again, a laugh that was so fake it couldn't even be called a laugh; it was rather some sick embodiment of the things that kept him coming back to this bar. Every damn night. Riza grabbed his shoulders and forced him to face her, forced him to meet her eyes. 

"Colonel," she said steadily, never breaking eye contact. "You're a mess. Let me take you home." 

He stared at her for several seconds before something in his face changed and he suddenly seemed infinitely more sober than he had been a split second ago. His gaze clouded. "Riza..." He slurred and she started; he'd used her name... "Lieutenant, I know. I know I'm a mess. I fucking _know_ , goddamn it!" 

Roy's face was changing rapidly - the veneer of the alcohol started to crumple, and while she knew he was still drunk as a lizard, it clearly wasn't serving the purpose he'd hoped it would. In almost a desperation, he kept talking. 

"Tell me one thing, Hawkeye," he said. "J-just tell me... How can I be a hero of Ishval if I... how can I... Fuck, Hawkeye, I'm not a hero! Heroes save people and I - " he sucked in a shuddering breath and her chest constricted at the rush of unfiltered agony in his darting eyes. 

"I just... kill people," he finished blankly, and suddenly all the fight seemed to leave him. His shoulders slumped, the last of his mask fell away until all that was left was the sadness, and it almost reeked. 

"Let's go home, Colonel," she said after a long moment, still fighting to keep her voice professional. She hooked an arm around his waist - a breach of protocol, maybe, but necessary - and took his weight up with her. Somehow they made it to her car, though time began to slip together in the haze they found themselves in. 

The drive was silent. Roy leaned his forehead on the passenger seat window and didn't say a word, but a few sidelong glances told her that he was shaking slightly. His expression in the tinted glass was tired and foreign. Riza was so tired... So exhausted. Every night he would fall apart, again and again until it seemed as though she'd never be able to find the pieces. Every night she tried to put him back together again. Every morning he rose, put on his uniform and faced the world with this facade of normalcy and arrogance that he couldn't maintain past the moment he stepped into the bar. 

Riza helped him up the steps to his apartment, pulled his spare key from under the rug and hauled him inside. Still he maintained a worrying silence. He sat himself down at the little round kitchen table and she sat across from him. He buried his face in his hands, his shoulders heaving irregularly. 

Gently, she pried them away from his face and wrapped her own around them tightly. Maybe if she squeezed his hands hard enough she could stop their shaking. He stared at their clasped hands without seeing them; his mind was far away, trapped in a hell full of sand and fire and dust. 

She began saying things, meaningless things. News from the office. Hughes' latest Elysia stories. Black Hayate's favourite place to go for walks. Havoc had a new girlfriend. Was Roy keeping up to date on Ed's possible love interest back in Resembool?

Anything and everything tumbled from her mouth in gentle words, pulling him back to earth as the clocked ticked on monotonously. It ticked 345 times before Roy's gaze cleared and he let out a ragged breath, and she felt the tension leave his hands. 

"Riza," he murmured and she started; she was always caught off guard when he used her name. "Go home." 

Indignation. "Excuse me, sir?" 

He chuckled humourlessly. "You have better things to do, I'm sure. Stop worrying about me so much. You needn't go out of your way like this all the time." 

"With all due respect, sir, you would not have made it home if I hadn't dragged you here." 

He stared at her for a long moment before his shoulders slumped. "I know," he murmured. "I'm sorry. God, I'm so fucking sorry, Riza." 

"Shut up," she shot back, dropping her voice to match his. She squeezed his hands and tried to hold on to every fragment of him that was flaking off in sheets, crumpling in her hands, broken beyond repair. "If you really want to take a load off my mind, you'd stop drowning yourself in whiskey every night." 

"Easier said than done," he whispered, his voice breaking somewhere in the middle. A tremor ran through his body. 

"I know." 

"I have to get out of my own mind somehow - you understand this, Riza." 

"It's clearly not working right now, sir." 

"I - " he faltered, another tremor shuddering through his frame. "I - how do I - God... I don't know. I don't know how I'm supposed to get away. There's no exit door." He was shaking like a leaf. 

"I know." She did know. "I can't find one, either." 

There's no door out of hell for murderers, he'd said once. She believed it. It was times like this, when he was breaking apart under the weight of the anguish he carried around, that she wished there was. 

"Y'know what?" He said after a while. "Sometimes I think I should've pulled the trigger." 

She knows. She hears it all the time. 

"I'm glad you didn't, sir." 

"Sometimes I'm not." 

"I know." 

"Fucking hell, I just... Fuck. I'm so fucking tired, Riza." 

"I know." 

Time wrapped itself around them unforgivingly, and the clocked ticked second after second after second after second until Riza couldn't distinguish her own heartbeat from the goddamn thing. 

Outside, it began to rain. 

**Author's Note:**

> Something short and stupid because why the hell not. Nevertheless I hope yall enjoyed :)
> 
> ~MercuryPoisoning


End file.
